Hollow Victory
by Ghost501
Summary: Hiccup remembers the final battle between the Berkians and the Outcasts.


It wasn't supposed to end this way. This wasn't victory that he had envisioned at all. Hiccup had gone over every attack pattern and had practiced every maneuver down to the last tail spin. But even that hadn't helped him. He felt Toothless nudge against him, purring sadly. He petted his best friend's snout and walked into the infirmary. As he opened the door, he couldn't help but remember the scenes from earlier that day.

* * *

"_Alright everyone! This is it! Remember to give everything you have! Remember that the Outcasts will not give you a chance to attack them! They will not give you a chance to defend yourselves! So, we will not give them the chance! Attack swiftly and we may finally be able to defeat the Outcasts." Stoick's commanding voiced boomed all over Berk._

_Every man, woman, and child stood at attention and listened to the great chief's voice. Today was an important day for the Berkians. Today would mark the day that they finally defeated Alvin and the Outcasts. Almost a year ago, Mildew had showed their enemy how to train a dragon—Alvin had rewarded him with death so that he would not be a threat to him if any of his enemies wanted to learn the secret to training dragons. Now, they were at war. Casualties had been taken on both sides, but the two warring parties did not relent._

"_Hey, where's Hiccup?" Snoutlout asked._

"_He's probably at his home preparing for the fight." Tuffnut said._

"_Well, he needs to hurry up. We're about to leave."_

"_Please wake up. Please, Astrid. Please wake up." Hiccup whispered. The blonde maiden lay in her bed. Her face was as white as snow. As Hiccup put a hand on her forehead, he felt the heat from her fever. She had been sick with illness ever since she had been struck by her own Nadder's spikes. Stormfly hadn't meant to injure her partner and friend, but Alvin had pushed in the way of her attack. Astrid had been clipped by a spine, but the damage had been done. The poison flowed through her veins and tried to bring her down. Despite the medicine working to get rid of the poison, she seemed to still struggle against her sickness. Luckily for her, Astrid's warrior-like stubbornness was trying to save her. _

_Hiccup gently brushed some of the hair out of her face as she shivered. She knew he was going to get it after she woke up. She was going to miss the final battle and in a fit of rage would probably take it out on him. But he didn't care. As long as she was awake, as long as she was alive, he would be happy._

_He quietly left the room and called Toothless from his perch in the rafters. The black dragon purred quietly. "I know; you're worried about her to huh bud." He turned back to see the girl still shivering and still fighting for her life. "She'll be okay. She's Astrid. Come on, bud. We got to get back into town. Today's the day._

_The Berkian army flew in silence. Their minds geared for battle. Hiccup released a breath. He would be the starter. With Toothless's ability, they would be able to launch an attack almost undetected. The night sky made them invisible as they glided. Hiccup turned back and his father gave him the signal. Time to move out._

"_Now!" Hiccup said and he and Toothless banked down into the night. The telltale sound of a night fury attack, the whistling wind, echoed throughout Outcast Island as a bright blue fireball blew up a sentry tower. The two gained altitude quickly as the other dragons swooped down and attacked._

_The battle quickly turned into a bloodbath. Hiccup could hear the sounds of dragons roaring, men shouting, and swords slashing. He tapped Toothless's neck once, telling his best friend that it was time to attack again. As Toothless banked down to the ground, Hiccup noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Fishlegs. The large boy was trying to stop an outraged Changewing from attacking. However, he failed to notice Alvin's Whispering Death burrowing underneath him. As the dragon popped up from the ground, it startled the riled Changewing and it fired a round of acid. The Whispering Death returned back into the ground, narrowly avoiding being attacked, but Fishlegs wasn't so lucky. As Toothless returned back into the sky, Fishlegs's screams echoed in Hiccup's ears._

"_Toothless!"_

_The dragon growled as it turned in the direction of the scream. By the time they touched down, the Changewing had run off and the Whispering Death was no longer present. Fishlegs had stopped screaming. Hiccup felt his gag reflex almost take him over. _

_His friend was dead. Perhaps the only person who understood him almost as well as Astrid or Toothless was gone. Toothless growled softly. Meatlug had also been injured but it appeared that Fishlegs had taken most of the fire. The Gronkle moaned as if it was the one dying. Hiccup patted its snout as it drew close to the dead boy. It gently lay next to its late master._

"_You…you don't have to stay you know. You can get out of here."_

_Meatlug simply groaned as it looked at Hiccup with sad, determined eyes. She was going to stay here until someone came to collect his body._

"_Thank you." Hiccup said as he return back to Toothless and the two returned back to the night sky. They still had a job to do. But now they had an even greater resolve. This battle was not only for them but for Astrid and Fishlegs too._

"_Alright bud, time to try this out."_

_Toothless growled in agreement. As Toothless banked, he began to go lower than he normally did. Finally, right before he hit the ground, he pulled up and flew parallel to the ground. Toothless fired white plasma bolts at whoever he could. Since they were so close to the ground, most of the flying dragons, which was pretty much all but two, the Whispering Death and the Scaldron, could not see them and fell victim to Toothless's assault. They pulled up after two minutes of firing. Hiccup knew that Toothless was approaching his shot limit. They probably had only one left. They would just have to make it count._

_A distance roar caught his attention. Thornado. Toothless and Hiccup flew towards the sound of the roar only to see Stoick in battle with Alvin. However, they were having trouble since Alvin and his dragon kept on disappearing into the ground. Hiccup observed the scene for a minute before an idea began to form. They would just have to time it right._

"_Alright Toothless, as soon as Alvin comes up from the ground we'll attack." The dragon snorted in agreement._

_Then it happened. The Whispering Death appeared with Alvin on his body; he had discovered that it was easier to hold onto the body while it was burrowing underground. As the Outcast climbed up to his dragon's head to better direct it, he failed to hear the night fury coming in for an attack. But Stiock heard him though. The chief and Thornado stood their ground knowing that Hiccup and Toothless were going to attack._

"_Well Stoick, I have to admit. When I imagined this scene, I did not expect you to be sitting still. A little embarrassing isn't it. I mean you attack me on my homeland and yet you are the one taking most of the causalities. Ah well, it doesn't matter because after I'm done with you, I'll take over Berk. Goodbye Sto…"Toothless's plasma bolt cut off his statement as it hit the dragon and the outcast._

_Thornado unleashed a powerful roar that blew them both back. The Whispering Death, too startled to care about the little loyalty he had to the outcast, burrowed into the ground and disappeared. Alvin was left alone. Stoick jumped off the back of Thornado and punched Alvin in the face, knocking him out. "You're finished, Alvin."_

* * *

Soon after the Alvin's defeat, the battle ended. The Outcasts lost their fighting spirit after they heard that their leader was defeated. Fishlegs had been cremated and his ashes to be spread across Berk as a symbol of his great thirst for knowledge. Meatlug had, unfortunately, flown off Outcast Island. No one knew where she had gone, but it was clear that she had no wishes to return to Berk as long as Fishlegs was not present.

Even after all of this, Hiccup still felt a hole in his heart. He knew he couldn't have done anything to save his friend, but it didn't subtract from the fact that he wished he could have done something. But he took comfort in two facts, 1) Alvin would no longer be a problem. He would be living in a jail cell for the rest of his life and 2) Astrid was awake and talking.

"Hey."

"Hiccup? Is that you?" she said weekly.

"Yeah," he said coming closer to the bed.

"I heard about Fishlegs. I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"I'm just glad that it wasn't you."

"I am too."

"Hey, can you come closer for a second."

"Sure," he said as a fist shot out a made contact with his shoulder.

"That was for leaving me behind."

"And?"

'_Cocky boy. I guess that's what I get for using this line so much.'_ "This…is for everything else." She said right before she kissed him.


End file.
